


How to Orchestrate a Murder

by Ysavvryl



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Locked Room Mystery, M/M, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 03:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20613905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysavvryl/pseuds/Ysavvryl
Summary: Just two guys talking about murder, nothing suspicious about that.  And if you believe that, then I've got a deal for you...





	How to Orchestrate a Murder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).

The bell on the door chimed; Akira’s mind was already sorting through what to do. At a stool nearby, Akechi was sitting and drinking some coffee, as he had been fairly often lately. He was a part of the team and yet could never be a part of the team because he meant to betray them. That is, unless he could be lured further into caring enough to rethink the betrayal. But if that came about, the current plans would need to be adjusted. They still needed to bait out those responsible; Akechi might reveal who those people were no matter which way his loyalty fell.

“Ah, good evening Akira,” Akechi said with a pleasant smile.

Behind the bar, Sojiro was watching cautiously. He was being pleasant to Akechi as a customer. But then, Sojiro knew about the Phantom Thieves. He knew about Akechi being a traitor. While he didn’t know everything, he also knew it was important to play with Akechi’s expectations. And Akechi wasn’t in on how much Sojiro knew. With his police connections, he could get Sojiro into trouble too. Akira didn’t want that.

“Good evening,” Sojiro said, nodding to him and being more polite than normal.

“Good evening,” he replied, giving a nod back to Sojiro and setting Morgana’s bag down on a stool by Akechi. “Actually, I’m glad to see you stopped by this evening. I had something I wanted to pick your brain about.”

“Really?” Akechi asked, curious. “What is it?”

“In a bit, I’ll make some coffee for myself first,” Akira said.

Morgana popped out of the bag and hopped over to the next stool. “Hey, can I have some milk?”

“How about you try some of the Arabic beans tonight?” Sojirio suggested.

“Sure, and do you mind if I get a bowl of milk for Morgana too?” he asked.

He sighed, but then smiled. “Sure, it’s just one of your friends as a customer tonight. But you know the rules.”

“Right, I’ll clean the bowl once he’s done and send him upstairs if others come in,” Akira said, although they were keeping some small dishes aside just for feeding Morgana.

“Thanks!” Morgana called.

After listening to the particulars about the beans from Sojirio and making the coffee as he advised, Akira also got a bowl of milk to set on the floor for Morgana. Akechi had been listening in. “It sounds like you need to know a lot of details about coffee in order to run a café,” he said.

“That’s if you want to be really serious about the quality of your drinks,” Sojiro said, snuffing his cigarette into the ashtray near him. “Many cafes don’t care and most customers wouldn’t notice. But I notice, and care.”

“It’s certainly worth it,” Akechi said with a smile. “Then what did you want, Akira?”

He opened his bag and took out a notebook. “It’s a school assignment I got today, for a piece of creative writing. The teacher said it didn’t matter what form it took, but I thought it’d be fun to write a mystery. And since you’re a detective, could you give me some tips on how to make a good one?”

Akechi put his hand to his chin, taking the request seriously. “Hmm, possibly. It depends on the type of mystery you’d like to write, since every case is like its own riddle. Did you have anything in mind?”

“Well I’d rather it be something short so I don’t end up with a really long assignment,” Akira said, opening the notebook to where he’d started jotting down ideas. It was an actual assignment and seemed like a good opportunity to poke a bit more through Akechi’s façade. “But something interesting at the same time, I hope.”

“Then do you know much about cars?” Akechi asked. “Because if you want something short, an investigation into a traffic accident is a field that requires very quick fieldwork. The police have to cordon off the area around the accident, make observations of things that are out of place, and have the area cleaned up relatively quickly so as not to tie up traffic too long. I’ve only taken on a few cases involving traffic accidents myself because a good traffic detective needs to know at a glance many details about the scene, such as what tire markings on the road mean about the vehicle’s speed and control, or how various types of collisions affect the bodies of various types of cars. When they’ve come up before, I’ve had to rely on the observations of senior detectives.”

“I don’t know that much about cars,” Akira said. “But I did read a mystery recently about a murder in a locked room, which was pretty interesting.”

“Hmm, yes, those are good ones,” Akechi said, thinking his response through.

* * *

Asking about how to write a mystery… did Akira mean something more in that? Did he suspect him, or did he trust him? The Phantom Thieves were keeping him at a distance (for admittedly good reasons), but he wanted to close the distance to make his plans go smoother. Goro had picked up on how to read people, or at least he thought he had. Then he’d met Akira who somehow defied his observational skills. He’d seemed like an intelligent stranger at first, someone who could challenge him and had the will to do so. Then he seemed like a meek and average student, one who might be forgettable. And he was completely different from either of those when he was acting as Joker in the Metaverse. Just who was he, at his core?

From the notes he already had done (including one to ask him), it seemed like this assignment wasn’t a lie. But it also seemed like a chance to force him to prove his worth as a detective. Goro was certain that he could write a mystery if he wanted to. After all, he set up his own mysteries to solve and found ways to be acknowledged in cases that he didn’t do much for. Perhaps Akira suspected this about him and was using this assignment to get proof? Or maybe he just wanted the help, as a friend.

Goro gestured with his hands to indicate a box. “For a locked room murder, it seems like you’d need to set up all the pieces within the room itself, yes? But no, you need to consider the building around the locked room as well. It’s like a puzzle box, but some of the pieces to solve it might be outside the box. The scene of the crime is most likely within the locked room, but what if the body was taken to the locked room after the person was killed? And a central part of the case hinges on the lock itself. The murder needs some way to get out of the room without being caught.”

“Right, some way to make the door appear to have been locked from the inside is important,” Akira said. “I’d think that the murderer would be someone who likes to make such puzzles, or likes overcomplicating things. Like if there was some kind of way to rig the door so that turning a hidden mechanism on the outside of the room would lock the room from the inside handle.”

One could also use the Metaverse to manipulate the victim to lock themselves in, blurring the line of if it was a suicide or murder. There was a surprising amount that one could get people to do by controlling their Shadow. But, he couldn’t tip Akira off with that. “It would take some time to set up too. That would make it a premeditated murder, not one of passion unless they decided to set up the locked room after the incident. But in that case, the set-up would be sloppier with more mistakes a detective could use for clues. Does this need to be a full story?”

Akira shook his head. “No, it’s simply for some form of creative writing. I think some others are just going to turn in poetry since it seems easier, but I thought this was more interesting.”

“Then perhaps you could simply describe the murder scene and leave it up to the readers to solve what happened,” Goro said. “As long as it was clear that you put thought in it, your teacher might accept that.”

“Maybe, but then I’d have to figure out a full view and timeline for the murder even if I don’t use it all,” he said, closing his eyes. “Seems like a lot of work.”

“But it would be impressive to your teacher,” he said, hoping the conversation might continue if he encouraged him. He rarely had time to speak with friends and this was an interesting exercise. In fact, it was rare that someone felt him familiar enough to be on first-name basis with him.

“I suppose I could do some more planning to see if I want to do it, especially if you help,” Akira said. On the other hand, Akira had many friends even though he didn’t use his intelligence to its best. Why was he the one with more friends?

“Sure, sounds fun.” And perhaps he could set up a fun locked room mystery in killing him later on; he was looking forward to that.

* * *

They had figured out a means to get the door locked seemingly from the inside when it was actually done outside: make sure there were prints from someone else on the interior lock while gloves were used to keep the outer lock clean (too clean, in fact, to help with solving the case). Then an older couple who were regulars of Leblanc showed up later than usual. It was a good excuse. “Why don’t we continue this upstairs, in a bit?” Akira asked, picking up Morgana’s empty milk dish to get clean.

“Sure,” Akechi agreed, taking his own notebook to study up on something while he worked on the dishes.

“I’m gonna take a walk outside, if you don’t mind,” Morgana said, heading off and jumping up to open the door himself. With a kick, he had it shut again

At that, Sojiro chuckled. “That cat’s far too clever at times. At least he doesn’t know how to pick locks.”

“He could be a lot of trouble to keep track of if he learns that,” Akechi agreed.

Akira’s desk wasn’t a great place for two people to work, so they closed the door to the attic and used the table by the stairs. He started by drawing up a basic room. “This could be a home or office building, where the victim and the murderer are both familiar with how things work. There could be other people around regularly too, so it isn’t as obvious who did it.”

“An office could be good because then there’s a plausible reason for why the room has a locked door,” Akechi suggested, leaning closer to him. “Knowing who’s familiar with a place is important for making a list of suspects. It’s also why you find stories that use a butler or another servant that murders their employer, because the murderer is familiar with the location, and familiar enough with the victim that they might not suspect something’s wrong until too late.”

“Sounds reasonable,” he said. From observing him, Akira felt like Akechi might not realize how close he was coming. How far could he take this ruse? “Although now I’m thinking about setting it in an office, where there’s a handful of suspects to interview about what they claim happened. Like the victim wasn’t too popular and any of the coworkers have some reason to kill them.”

“Like perhaps their boss or supervisor,” he asked, making his own sketches on another page. “Even if there were plans, it could be a crime of opportunity, using what’s in the room or something that could be concealed in a suit.”

“Like a knife,” Akira suggested, adding in a computer desk and some office chairs.

“Yes, and that victim would give an excuse for the perpetrator’s prints to be on the inside of the door,” Akechi said.

“Would a hand sanitizer wipe work to clean prints off a doorknob?” he asked.

“That depends on the brand, since some soak up skin oils and others don’t. They do make cleaning wipes that remove oils for things like automotive work, which would mess with prints.”

“That could be a clue to the perpetrator,” Akira said, setting up a mark of a body in one of the office chairs and making some notes on what could happen. “You’re really getting into this.”

“Oh?” Akechi looked at his face, then realized he was leaning close. He straightened back up and smiled. “Well it is fun to look at a case in this manner, figuring out what happened first, then what clues need to be out there to solve or distract from a case. Sorry.”

“Don’t be, because it’s adorable how interested you are,” he said, lowering his voice as if he was trying to keep it quiet despite being alone in the room with him.

His body tensed and his cheeks turned pink. “Ah, really?”

Akira poked him with a pencil. “Or I just like getting you flustered like that.”

“You are such a troll sometimes,” Akechi said, trying to smile it off although he nervously brushed his hair aside.

He could probably do even more, Akira thought, once he got Akechi distracted again. “I know.”

* * *

“What would be the murderer’s motive now…” Akira thought out loud, looking back over their sketches of crime scenes and notes on the workplace.

“Isn’t it just because they don’t like their boss?” Goro asked. “That’s what we talked about earlier.”

“Well even if it is premeditated, there should be some emotional or rational motive for the murder,” he said, serious about figuring out the puzzle again. “Because murder is a serious action to take and most people wouldn’t murder someone simply because they didn’t like them. Plus, it seems like a cheap cop-out if the motive boiled down to they committed murder just to murder someone. And knowing the psychology of the perpetrator and the victim should help figure out what happened, right? You’re the detective here.”

Goro felt unnerved, like a spotlight had been cast on him. Motives in the cases he manipulated were something that sounded good, not carefully thought out. Stress was an excellent motive for a psychotic break, one that people would quickly accept. “Once you figure out how the murder was committed and who had likely done it, the why usually doesn’t matter a whole lot.”

“That’s odd, I thought it would,” Akira said. “Because when you have multiple suspects like this, all of whom could have committed the murder, and then the broken security cameras too, then I’d think that determining and comparing motives along with psychologically profiling the case would make the likelihood of the suspects clearer.”

“In a complicated case, perhaps,” Goro said, acting as though he was sure of himself. “Motives are usually simple to figure out once the facts of the case become clear. Like if a cashbox was stolen from the office, greed could be a motive here. Or the fact that he was killed in his office, it could be frustration at work conditions.”

“But even if they are simple, they seem key to figuring out how things work,” he said, still sure of it himself. “Like say the victim isn’t the perpetrator’s only target of hate and frustration.”

“Like there’s an indirect victim?” he asked.

He nodded. “Like one of their coworkers is someone they’re frustrated by as well, like they could feel that their coworker stole their lover. They’re clever enough to set up this locked room, so they should be clever enough to figure out that if they attacked their coworker directly, they’d be a strong suspect. But if they could take out another source of frustration in their boss, maybe out of jealousy or anger over not being promoted, they might figure that they can set up the coworker to take the blame for the boss’ death. Then it’d be important to figure out that the coworker’s anger isn’t strong enough for a motive for murder.”

“That makes some sense,” Goro said, feeling embarrassed. He should have been the one to figure out that kind of thing, except that emotions were unpredictable things and couldn’t be planned around. He’d always figured that it was impossible to really put yourself in another’s shoes. Not wanting to look bad, he said, “Hey, we’re pretty far into this, but how do you think this would work out if the perpetrator had access to the Metaverse?”

“It’d be a lot easier for the perpetrator to get away with it since they wouldn’t leave any clues behind that most investigators could find,” Akira said. “That’d be a completely different means of murder too, like a mental shutdown? Or even a psychotic break making the coworker both lock the door from the inside and killing the boss before the coworker suffered a death of shutdown too. Maybe even a faked suicide.”

“You could probably set up a pretty complicated locked room mystery with mental shutdowns,” he said. And the staged death coming up would be ridiculously easy to make a locked room, given that he could take complete control of the area.

“I don’t know if it’s good for this assignment since it would make the murder too difficult for a reader to solve,” he said.

“Fair point,” he admitted.

He tapped his pencil on the table, looking at their notes. He was impressively intelligent when he made the effort, Goro thought. But not clever enough to figure him out. Akira then said, “We’re not even sure how the mental shutdowns and such work, although you might have some ideas.”

“Well now that I’ve been to the Metaverse, yes,” he said. “It does make it clearer how such things could work.”

“Like if the perpetrator completely destroyed the Shadows of the victims rather than just weaken them enough to take their Treasure?” Akira said, turning to him. “Morgana did warn us that it could kill the host when we first started, which made us hesitate initially.”

“That’s likely for the mental shutdowns,” Goro said. He was listening a lot better than others in the police department, perhaps because he knew the Metaverse was real. “And do we really know what afflicting the ruler of a Palace with status ailments will do to them in the normal world? Because the Shadows are a person’s subconscious self, and you’ve proven that changing the subconscious mind changes the conscious mind.”

“That could be how things work with the psychotic breaks,” Akira said, accepting that. “That’s some clever insight on those cases, Akechi.”

He smiled as normal but felt giddy at the acknowledgment. It wasn’t as fun anymore to hear people call him a genius and leave it at that. But to have someone willing to discuss his work and be impressed at it, that was sincere and meant so much more. Of course, Goro couldn’t tell him everything. Although, what would he think about it if he did? Akira didn’t have any qualms about doing some questionable things, including discussing theoretical murder with him. Although, his plans did involve bringing Akira to justice, to end his influence over the Metaverse.

Instead of all that, he said, “Oh, that’s just what seems reasonable. Hey, so if you’re interested in motives and psychology, what do you think the motives behind the mental shutdowns are?”

“Well I’m no expert like you are,” he said, putting his elbows on the table to rest his head on his hands. “But it seems pretty obvious that they are using the Metaverse to their advantage. They’ve been using it for a lot longer than we have too since the oldest incident I know of was two years ago. And I have a feeling that you might be missing some cases of mental shutdowns.”

“Really?” Of course he wasn’t. Or, was he? Maybe there was another Metaverse user? It was unlikely, and yet maybe…

Akira nodded seriously. “I know of a friend of a friend who went missing and was only located recently, having experienced a mental shutdown around a year back. She was picked up wandering around and taken to a hospital, where she couldn’t think or identify herself. The hospital hadn’t even diagnosed it as a mental shutdown since apparently there are natural cases of such shutdowns due to traumatic events. Knowing the circumstances, they could finally diagnosis her condition as such.”

“interesting, who is that?” It could make his work look better if he could find such cases that he’d let go previously.

But he shook his head. “Sorry, I know you’re working on the investigation and all, but I don’t want to compromise my friend’s trust. But if you look into hospitals for unidentified patients, you’ll probably find her and others. Maybe in getting a wider spread of cases, you could see who would benefit the most from the shutdowns. After all, we thought Okumura was suspiciously connected to the shutdowns. He did have connections, but if we’d had more information on the cases, we could’ve noticed sooner that it was only a small portion of the shutdowns and psychotic breaks that benefited him. There’s someone even more central to this all; we just need to follow the web inward until we can pinpoint them.”

“Hmm, finding the unidentified cases would help with that,” Goro said. “But what would you think of as the central figure’s motives now?”

“They probably have an impulsive need to control things,” Akira said. “And a delusion of being the most important person around. They’re someone who believes that the phrase ‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered down’ means that they deserve the hold the hammer at all times and they don’t care anything about the nails.”

“That’s frightening to think of,” he said, thinking that reply would appeal to him. Also that Akira was being uncannily on the nose about Shido. He could be a great detective with the right training, without the need for faking cases. How was he so good at it? Goro didn’t know for a moment if he felt insulted or intrigued. “Then are they the one who causes the shutdowns, or perhaps they have a hitman?”

“If they’re not the one causing the shutdowns, then they most likely will kill off the one who is once they feel secure,” he answered without hesitation.

Goro dug his fingernails into his palms, trying not to be too open about how much that angered and scared him. “Why’s that? Wouldn’t they keep the source of their control close?”

Akira just shrugged, not noticing how this was affecting him yet. “If they know how the Metaverse works, they could find something else with potential. But their theoretical hitman would be a vulnerability to their image in knowing their dirty tactics. Someone who wants control is not going to let a vulnerability stay for long. At least, that’s my guess about them, if there is a hitman and a manipulator at the center of things. I’ve read some stories with villains like that.”

“It’s a possibility to keep in mind, I suppose,” he said, closing his eyes and working on calming himself. He didn’t need to let on about the truth yet; he needed Akira to trust him.

“Well I think you don’t need to let it get to you so much,” Akira said, startling Goro into looking at him. And realizing that he’d gotten close again without realizing it. “It must be a stressful position on you, trying to use logic to figure out supernatural crimes.”

“It has been frustrating,” he said, although that applied more to Sae than himself. “But I’m closer to the truth now.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, and then kissed him.

What had brought this on? He was supposed to get their trust, not this. And it had been in the plans to kill the leader all along, once he got him separate and in a compromised position. Kissing him didn’t make any sense! But it felt intoxicatingly good, especially once Akira tugged his chair closer to put an arm around him.

“A-Akira, why…?” he asked once he got a moment. His mind was a jumbled daze and not able to formulate anything to say.

“Don’t worry about it, Goro,” he said softly, stroking his ear and smiling like some seductive devil. But Goro found he didn’t care; he had Akira close now and wanted to stay closer than he really should. “You seemed afraid for some reason, and I just couldn’t help myself.”

Then he had noticed how he felt, something that frightened him more. What would happen if Shido found out? Especially if Akira’s intuition was good enough to predict what Shido might do without knowing him. “I, uh, I’m supposed to…” should he just kiss him again to avoid answering? He wanted to keep kissing him and go along with whatever he wanted. And maybe even tell him the truth, if there was some way of getting out of the snare they were in. “…ar-rest you…” he went on weakly, his breath getting rapid in a panic.

“Shh, calm down,” Akira said, holding onto him tighter. “That doesn’t concern me now and it shouldn’t concern you either. It’ll all work out in the end.”

“I don’t know why I’m afraid,” he stammered, although he knew perfectly well why. He wasn’t in control now, not of the situation, not even of his own emotions. And the date for the trap was close. He had to kill him then, not be kissing him now. But Akira had just used his first name for the first time, and he was so damn fascinating to speak with, and this shouldn’t end so soon. “I just want to forget about it.”

“Then forget about it,” he said before kissing him again.

It was much easier to just forget and live in the moment, damn the consequences.

But then Morgana got the attic door open, disrupting them and breaking the mood. Not sure what he was feeling, Goro gathered up his things quickly to get back to his apartment. He nearly forgot his case notebook. Thankfully, Akira handed it to him rather than keeping it. That would have made him suspicious, if he was willing to be suspicious now. Mostly on autopilot, Goro walked through the streets and made his way through the train station.

The temptation to give up on this plan was powerful. But then, so was the fear of what would happen if he gave up on his plans for revenge this close to his success. Taking down Shido had been his motivation for so many years, no matter what it took to destroy him, even if it destroyed himself. After all, it took so much work to make his life appear as though it had any worth. But, murdering Akira now? When there was a chance that maybe, maybe Akira would be okay if Goro wanted to continue what started this evening and give him his loyalty. That might give his life the worth that he deserved.

“This is ridiculous,” Goro said to himself while he unlocked his apartment door. There was no one here; there was never anyone here but himself. He was just wishing for ridiculous things… ridiculous things that he wanted badly nevertheless.

He didn’t get any sleep that night.

* * *

“He seemed awful flustered,” Morgana said, then jumped onto the table as his usual spot to watch over the room. “Did I come back at a bad time? It’s getting late.”

“Nah, he needs to figure things out on his own,” Akira said, busying himself with sorting his school bag. That had been quite the experience; Akechi was terribly easy to mess with, a vulnerability that somebody else had to be using against him too. He just had to decide now which side to cling to. “But I did get some things out of him.”

“Like what?” Morgana asked, curious.

Having calmed himself down (although he’d probably have vivid dreams tonight), he stood back up and turned to Morgana. “Like a stronger suspicion that he is the one causing the mental shutdowns. But there’s definitely someone controlling him, through fear and flattery, probably Akechi’s own ambitions too. If we had more time, I’m sure that I could win his loyalty over the real leader of everything.”

“The date we’re sending the calling card isn’t far,” he said.

“Right,” Akira said. “He might still go through with his plans for killing me.” He tapped his foot, wondering if there was some way to, “But he might also back out now. There’s just not enough time for me to put enough motivation on him to be sure of it.”

Morgana tilted his head. “Huh, what’d you do to him?”

“Well,” he leaned down and smiled, “that’s a secret.”

“Aw come on!” Morgana protested, making him laugh.

“Well it is late,” he said, heading over to his bed and stretching. “I’ll have to think it over some more with a clear mind. There might just be enough time, but I doubt it. At the very least, I should give you guys some backup plans should Akechi back out.”

“Hmph, well I hope you’ll tell me later,” Morgana said, turning his attention to nibbling at his claws. “Good night Akira.”

“Good night Morgana.”


End file.
